While the world was distracted by Dylann Roof’s shooting spree, the Republican-controlled Congress singlehandedly saved Obamatrade and handed President Obama “fast track authority” to negotiate new free trade agreements:
“The White House and Republican leaders notched a significant victory Wednesday with the Senate’s passage of divisive trade legislation, but the win kicks off a grueling, monthslong process to complete a Pacific trade pact that still faces domestic opposition and must win final congressional approval.
President Barack Obama is expected to sign the fast-track legislation within days, clearing a negotiating roadblock that prevented officials from moving ahead on the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership. …”
It is difficult to exaggerate the staggering blow that “fast track authority” will have on the American worker. The American middle class is already collapsing under the weight of twenty years of “bipartisan” free trade agreements.
The damage caused by the free trade agreements of the past will be dwarfed by those of the future which will now be ratified in breakneck speed. “Economists” will be on hand to spin a silk purse out of this sow’s ear. The swift demise of the American middle class will be trumpeted in The Wall Street Journal as the start of a new Golden Age.
In reality, we’re already well into the middle of the Second Gilded Age, and once again the Republican Party has been instrumental in enthroning the new class of Robber Barons over working class and middle class families.
Note: This is why nationalists must act now to disassociate our message from the Republican Party. It is not in our interest to be identified with a political party which 1.) hates us anyway, 2.) does nothing for us, and 3.) will be blamed in the inevitable backlash by millions of dispossessed White Americans.
Fast Track by itself isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it still needs to be opposed because the U.S. Senate, with so many of its members bought and paid for, rarely votes down trade treaties, even though treaties need two-thirds.
HW wrote:
This is why nationalists must act now to disassociate our message from the Republican Party. It is not in our interest to be identified with a political party which 1.) hates us anyway, 2.) does nothing for us, and 3.) will be blamed in the inevitable backlash by millions of dispossessed White Americans.
I respond:
Not only do I agree with that, but the nationalist movement has to put a lot of daylight between itself and lamestream conservatism, in fact, triangulate between lamer cons and the left. We simply can’t be just another movement bitching about how the Republican establishment won’t adhere to the tenets of lamestream conservatism. Time winds up teaching a lot of lessons, and that turns out to have been the biggest flaw in the Tea Party Movement, that they want the features and results of nationalist governance without quite knowing that it’s nationalism that they want, but they thought they could get those features by enacting “pure” lamestream conservatism and by purifying the Republican Party of RINOs. The two main reasons why that wasn’t even going to work is that lamestream conservatism isn’t much of a serious governing ideology, that there was one President who won two terms based on it was almost a pure accident; instead, it’s really an illusion and a mirage to keep people in line to vote for donor-driven corporatist politicians who have no intention of towing the lamestream conservative orthodoxy, and the other is that when Sheldon Adelson sneezes, more money jiggles around in his pockets than everyone associated with the TPM ever spent on anything political.
I forgot to add a third reason: Even if “pure” lamestream conservatism was enacted, sure, we might get a lot of what we want, but we would also get a lot of what we don’t want.
I spent 20 plus years opposing trade deals, and let me tell you “Fast Track” is the worst. Why because, Obama and his pals will be able to load up these trade deals with all sorts of special deals, for his special friends in sub-sections of the agreements, many in vague, dense, obscure language.
Then as usual the trade deal will be jammed down Congresses throat without the members having read it, let alone understanding what they read.
I remember of the China PNTR deal, I found an open source of all sorts of facts about China relating to PNTR. Facts that some key players in Congress hadn’t even heard of—I changed some minds on PNTR, but, it wasn’t enough. Just like today you had the Democratic administration pushing PNTR backed up by the greedy GOP Republican types.